What makes you you?

What makes you you?

“A person’s identity is like a pattern drawn on a tightly stretched parchment. Touch just one part of it, just one allegiance, and the whole person will react, the whole drum will sound,” wrote Amin Maalouf. On the perception of just one part of a soul unbound to any humane rules. “It’s never been more asked of us to show up as only slices of ourselves in different places,” observed Martin with Parker Palmer and Krista Tippett.

As I choose who I am and what I might become, it is not just a matter of perception but what I go through and what I see. They shape my ideas, my beliefs and in turn mold my soul.

Over the past few decades socializing has had its meaning changed too, as we have chosen fragments and fragments over the inner wholeness of one’s soul, it might not even be an overstatement to say, ‘that it would be a sight too soon to come when someone mistakes us for someone completely opposite of whom we truly are.’

Amidst the bewildering wilderness, as the world goes down slowly on its own, we as human beings seemingly fail to realize that it is not I who alone needs to survive but we.

Depending on what facade we choose to wear, our fragments are radically different from each other, each with their own set of abilities and disabilities, and the prowess of defining things with their own approach. Nonetheless, they set different goals, with varied expectations but above all, each and every bit of our own self-chooses a different approach to define who we are, both emotionally and intellectually.

It’s indeed amazing how we still manage to interpolate between the various forms and parts of something that I do not understand. Crushing along our own self, are people who meet us, their own selves debating over how they must greet or how do they sound when they do.

Character, though, has a different meaning. He is not be confused with someone who does not have these unvaried diverse notions, but someone who is determined and can be solely dependent on. He is someone who will not fall, for he has a free will. And even then no single character is solely above all because even the one you possess has its demerits too. To know of one’s capabilities is to know what suits us the best and what are we keen for, that is what makes a person’s character, and that is exactly why a single character can never be dignified for all.

“If one tries to force the life of a bargainer on the character of a philosopher, one is likely to encounter trouble, sorrow, and the sort of evil that comes from mismatching life and temperament. Characters formed within one society and living in circumstances where their dispositions are no longer needed — characters in the time of great social change — are likely to be tragic. Their virtues lie useless or even foiled; they are no longer recognized for what they are; their motives and actions are misunderstood. The magnanimous man in a petty bourgeois society is seen as a vain fool; the energetic and industrious man in a society that prizes elegance above energy is seen as a bustling boom; the meditative person in an expansive society is seen as melancholic… Two individuals of the same character will fare differently in different policies, not because their characters will change through their experiences (though different aspects will become dominant or recessive) but simply because a good fit of character and society can conduce to well-being and happiness while a bad fit produces misery and rejection,” argued Amelie Rorty.

But corruption spreads even to those with a strong will, it spreads like wildfire, burning everything in its path, for the fact remains that a single individual does not form the society, he is but an essence.

The contrast between the inner and outer person becomes the contrast between the individual and the social mask, between nature and culture.

A society of individuals is quite different from one formed by selves. Different people with their own selves find it hard to accommodate with the withering souls that are not their own. It is indeed tough, but it is what it is and is exactly what forms the laws and the principles of justice.Their rights are not properties; they cannot be exchanged or barred. Their rights and their qualities are their very essence, variedly distinguishable.

It is in their solitude that their true nature is unveiled, where the person finally with this own consciousness chooses what is right for his own individuality.

There are times when a person cannot take a stand, it is then, when he must loosen his control, neither in a dominating form nor in a controlling way, beyond his measure of ego, he must remain present to all his surroundings, for it marks the position as in attending and being present to his own set of experiences, without having any sort of control over it.

Somewhere in all of this, there starts a gradual process of growth. As years pass by, and things change, there are moderations that take place, sometimes so huge that it changes the very persona of a human being. Amidst all of this, there is but one question to answer, after all, the changes that took place, are we still the same person- and, if not, at what point did we stop being the same person? As an answer to this odd question, one may perceive it as being similar to the process of growth; one side holding that you remained the same, and the other contending that you were not the same.

“If you wake up someday and find it has all been a dream, be comforted. Dreams are the realest of them all.” -Neil Gaiman